Vampire Hookers

 

The people who made Vampire Hookers knew what kind of movie they were making and they leaned into it. They also tried to make it the best movie they could, with surprisingly good results. The big name of the movie, then and now, is John Carradine. He was a well respected actor who had been in many classic movie, but by the time this movie came out in 1978 he had already been "reduced" (as I'm sure he saw it even if I disagree) to doing t.v. show guest spots and low budget horror movies. He plays the head vampire, Richmond Reed. Incidentally this was Carradine's real first and middle name. From both the name and synopsis of the movie you would expect him to be a sort of vampire pimp, but he mostly sits around reciting old poets and occasionally acting as father figure to the three female vampires.

The three vampire "hookers" don't spend much time on the street. The one played by Karen Stride shows up at a bar and takes a navy officer back to her graveyard lair. Aside from that a lewd comment by the cab driver Julio who acts as a procurement man for both navy personnel and vampires is the only indication of any hooking. In fact all 3 lady vampires seem to be sex starved. Karen Stride, whom I mentioned before, went on to do a lot of uncredited t.v. appearances, including 3 episode of Cheers. Lenka Novak was in Kentucky Fried Movie and Slaughterhouse Rock among a few other things. This is Katie Dolan's only credit. Rounding out the vampire coven is Pavo,. played by  Vic Diaz who was in a string of grindhouse movies and later popped up in The Expendables. Pavo is the inept henchman who doesn't like the taste of blood and hasn't grown his fangs yet. He also farts a lot. Like really, it gets weird.

The heroes of our piece are two navy men plaid by Trey Wilson and Bruce Fairbain.Wilson has done some t.v. and had parts in movies like Married To The Mob, Bull Durham and Twins, but I immediately recognized him as Nathan Arizona from Raising Arizona. Fairbairn did a bunch of t.v., and to give an idea of how varied his credit are the next thing he did after this movie was a show called Great Heroes of the Bible. Incidentally Carradine also did an episode of that show later the same year. Anyway, they play Terry and Tom, two sailors out looking for a good time. Their friend ends up in the hands of the vampires and so they take it on themselves to uncover what is really going on in that graveyard. The movie never takes itself at all seriously, being played entirely as a broad comedy. With that being said, they did try to make it look good. There are some neat transitions like passing through a wall while going from day to night, and some interesting framing like the sex montage where the camera is focused on one of the sailors having sex with one of the vampires seen through the crooked knee of another of the vampires.

And yes, of course there is a sex montage. But I have to say that the movie is more restrained that I expected, and even during the sex montage it tries to be "classy". It cuts to a series of paintings of a goat creature having sex with women in various positions that are honestly hotter than anything the actors are doing on screen. Everything leads to a "twist" ending that almost everyone will see coming but is the only satisfying conclusion (the only problem with it is how the character involved didn't see it coming given all the clues he has been given). Then there is the theme song, which is my favorite newly found piece of music right now. It's a goofy pop thing, sounds more 60's than 70's. It's kind of the perfect capper to this goofy movie that wants to share some laughs and show some tits (but not too many) and doesn't actually try to scare it's audience in any fashion. It's all just silly, and was plainly meant to be. It might not be roll on the floor funny, but it is a lot of fun.